


Mercy

by zarabithia



Series: Mercy  Universe [1]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Mercy Killing, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-20
Updated: 2007-03-20
Packaged: 2019-05-20 08:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14890772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: As Roy is dying, Dick grants one final request.





	Mercy

"Please?"

At the sound of his partner's request, Dick squeezes his eyes shut and tries to block both Roy's plea and the rancid smell of the foreign prison cell they'd landed in. It isn't the first time Roy has pleaded with Dick, but it is the first time Dick considers saying yes.

The love he and Roy have forged should make the task nearly unthinkable, yet the ravages their captors' poisons are taking on the redhead's body convince Dick that saying yes would be the true act of a friend. Still, duty, honor, obligation, and a code he'd been indoctrinated with from the time he'd raised his hand and swore an oath by candlelight prevents him from giving in. "I can't."

"Dammit, Dick -" Roy is interrupted from whatever broken, angry speech he's intending by yet another round of vomiting. He convulses so hard that Dick is glad most of his teeth have been removed, because the remaining ones smash against each other, sounding like bones snapping over and over again. That sound is still preferable to the one of Roy's head smacking against his own pile of vomit - too weak with agony and sickness to hold his own head up. Dick worries that Roy will drown in his own fluids, even as part of him thinks it would be a more merciful end than the inevitable one to come.

So, too, would be granting what Roy is asking.

The convulsions last for five minutes. Dick times them, as he has since they began a day ago when they had lasted for only thirty seconds at a time, even as he squeezes his eyes more tightly shut and tries to concentrate on the pain in both his broken legs as an escape from the sound of his partner writhing in agony. It turns out he's not quite selfish enough, as focusing on his own pain doesn't drown out Roy choking on clots of his own blood.

The sound is familiar enough that Dick knows he'll never forget it, even if they do manage to get rescued. But then, he doesn't suppose anyone can forget the sound of their best friend dying.

"Roy," He says, opening his eyes when the convulsions stop, making his question a statement because there's really no sense in asking if the other man is okay, even as he wants to. Nor is there any sense in wishing that he could pull his lover into his arms. Roy chooses to be as far away from Dick as possible in the cell, not because of any lingering animosity, but because Dick's partner is trying to spare him once again. This time from the bowel movements, urine, and vomit that the poison has robbed Roy of the ability to control.

"Still alive," Roy chokes out. There's a sob in that voice, and Dick aches at the enormity of all the pain he _can't_ see, because it has to be even worse than what he can see. . . smell. . . hear. The man across the jail cell from Dick has recovered from a heroin addiction, survived having five bullet wounds in his chest, and had prevented his throat from bleeding to death with his own palms. For Roy to be in so much pain that he's sobbing. . . Dick would give anything to trade places with him, to be able to take that pain away.

But he can't. Nor can he offer the reassurance that the League will be here soon to bail them out. The assurances stopped being an option when the convulsions started lasting longer than two minutes. By that point, both he and Roy had long since lost faith in Roy's new team. It had become obvious to Dick at that point that he was going to have to sit in their cramped cell and listen to Roy die and not be able to do anything about it.

By the time Roy's dry heaves had given way to regurgitated clumps of blood, feces, and what Dick believes are bits of organ matter, Dick stopped telling him that he needed to fight to survive for Lian.

"They'll come back," Roy says, his voice raw and hoarse, but gratefully no longer filled with sobs. Dick thinks Roy is talking about the Justice League, until he gets a good look of the terror on his partner's face. Then he realizes that the other man means their captors, the ones who did this to Roy as punishment to Dick for not telling them the secret identities they crave.

"I know," Dick says softly, mindful of the throbbing between Roy's temples. "They still haven't gotten what they wanted." Dick thinks he would tell them, if they offered a cure. They instead use what they've done to Roy as a torture, as a warning to what is yet to come for Dick.

Dick wishes they'd done it to him first, so that he wouldn't have to watch Roy die.

"They'll take you away. Torture you more."

"Yes." He doesn't tell Roy that their beatings and primitive shock treatments are preferred to sitting in this cell, watching Roy waste away.

"Don't know how long you'll be gone. I don't want . . . I don't want to die alone."

The fear of being alone. It has always been the one thing they'd had in common, even when Dick had been doing his best to push everyone away. Especially then.

Roy had been abandoned all his life, by people who claimed to love him. Dick's one of those people, and while he's thankful Roy had agreed to forgive him before they came on this mission, he'll never forgive himself the way Roy has forgiven him. Especially now.

"Don't make me die alone, Dick."

Dick understands that plea better than anyone. He wonders, even if he makes it out of this prison alive, if he'll die alone, too -if there's any way he won't, after Roy is gone.

"Please?"

He closes his eyes again, hearing every time Roy had said that word to him all over again. As a partner needing his help in battle, as an unknowing teenager needing help with his algebra homework, as a father needing to find his little girl. . . and every whispered, hurried, impatient, needful time Roy had whispered in his ear as they'd made love and Dick had brought him close enough to the edge to beg. . .

Perhaps most clearly of all, he remembers Roy's voice on his answering machine begging him to pick up the phone after Donna's death. The pleading that time had been Roy asking for companionship from the one man who should have understood what Roy was going through.

It had been a plea for him to not allow Roy to suffer alone.

Dick had ignored that plea. . . and in the aftermath of that consequence, had almost undone everything they’d built together. Giving in won’t undo that mistake, Dick knows, but it will be the full apology he’s never been quite able to express with words.

Even if it’s going to kill Dick to do what Roy asks.

"Come here," he says, ready to perform the mercy killing Roy craves, but for entirely different reason than relieving Roy of the physical pain ravaging his body.

Roy crawls over the dirt floor, unable to stand. His movements are jerky, having long since lost his sight. He makes it to where Dick is sitting, and Dick memorizes every one of Roy’s grasps along his leg as his partner feels his way into place.

They are, after all, the last touches of Roy’s that Dick will ever feel.

"Thank you," Roy says.

Dick says nothing immediately in reply; he just runs his hands over the too-thick beard and aches for all the times he’s never going to get to feel Roy’s scruff against his mouth.

"I wish I could still see well enough. . . To see you one last time," Roy says, and all the smell of the body waste and the feel of the pain in Dick’s legs no longer matters, because Dick is pulling Roy close to him, hugging the archer as tight as he can, and cringing at the soft cry of pain that his hug elicits from his partner.

"I love you." It’s the first time in a long time that it hasn’t been a whisper. Dick says it at the base of Roy’s ear, determined for his declaration to be as strong and confident as those words always should have been between them.

Roy‘s reply is in his first language, words that mean far more to Dick than their English equivalent would have. But Roy adds, just in case it wasn’t already clear, "I love you too, Dick." It’s the first time, Dick realizes, that Roy’s ever said those words without using a nickname. Dick understands why, but the loss of something that had defined their relationship for so long reminds Dick far too early of everything he‘s about to lose. "Dick. My baby. Take care of her."

"If I make it," Dick says simply. It’s the best promise he can make. Roy’s current request is taking everything else he has; there’s very little else left to give.

Roy pulls back then, allowing Dick to catch one final glimpse of those green eyes long enough to miss the gold in them he’d never see again. Roy winces as he pulls back with a pain so all consuming that Dick can’t pinpoint it. The poison has eaten through enough of Roy’s insides that merely sitting upright is too painful for him to endure.

Dick remembers the strength of the man he used to be, and carefully guides Roy’s head into his lap. The extra weight hurts, as Roy’s torso comes to rest across lacerations made by their captors. Dick is glad of the pain. It’s appropriate that the weight on his lap is as constrictive as the one inside his chest.

Doing damage by snapping a neck isn’t entirely difficult. There are a wide variety of options available, from paralysis to a cervical fracture to a slow death by asphyxia. But Dick’s goal, an instant death from spinal shock, takes more skill, particularly with a neck as muscular as Roy’s is.

Fortunately, Bruce had always taught him to be precise with his movements. There’s not a misstep in Dick’s hand as it comes down and hits its target. Roy is instantly rendered lifeless and the pain taken away.

Dick caresses the red hair that had only just begun to reach the right length and lays his head on the small of Roy’s back before allowing the tears to flow.

By the time their captors come for him, the body has grown cold in his arms. They jerk Dick roughly to his feet, knocking Roy’s body carelessly to the side, promising a similar death for Dick if he does not cooperate.

It is just as well that they do not realize how strongly he would welcome such a punishment. His captors are not in the habit of showing mercy.


End file.
